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Parents Pay Rs. 65,000 To Bouncers To Stop Daughter's Phone Addiction
Families in Gujarat are hiring bouncers to control teens with severe mobile and gaming addiction that has led to violent behaviour at home.
Teenagers’ attachment to mobile phones is common, but in some families it has escalated into a serious behavioural issue.
In Ahmedabad, the parents of a 16-year-old girl hired four bouncers in two shifts to monitor her round the clock, spending ?65,000 per month. Doctors said she had become severely addicted to social media and turned violent whenever her phone was taken away.
Psychiatrist Dr. Mrugesh Vaishnav said the girl was obsessed with posting photos online and interacting with strangers. She eventually began secretly leaving home to meet people she had connected with on social media.
When her parents tried to confiscate her phone, she became extremely aggressive, throwing household items from their apartment and attacking her mother. Along with medication, strict supervision was recommended as part of her treatment.
Similar cases have emerged across Gujarat. In Surat, a family hired eight bouncers over nine months to protect their pet dog from their gaming-addicted 17-year-old son. In Vadodara and Rajkot, security agencies report being hired to monitor teenagers involved in screen addiction, substance abuse, rash driving, and violent behaviour.
Mental health experts say digital dependency has risen sharply since the COVID-19 pandemic, with some severe cases requiring hospitalisation for up to four months. What was once limited to VIP security is now increasingly being used by families to manage extreme screen addiction in teenagers.